


Satelles

by Feelysonheelys



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Gen, Possible AU: 2017 Tour Show, Possible Stockholm Syndrome, Pre-Canon (Season 11), Therapy, Varied writing styles per chapter, Watch Out For Snakes Tour, tags to be updated with added chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-03-23 06:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13782027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feelysonheelys/pseuds/Feelysonheelys
Summary: Satelles, noun. Latin. Meanings include attendant, inferior, underling. Root of English word “Satellite”, first defined in theory in 1936 as “man-made machinery orbiting the Earth.”A series of brief glimpses in which each of the bots is confronted with an uncomfortable truth.





	1. Crow

**November 6th, 1999**

**Isaac-Mallory Counseling Center**

 

Well, duh! Of course I miss the satellite! I hope you weren’t looking for some kind of breakthrough there. It was where I lived for hundreds of years, it would be weird if I didn’t get attached to it. For the first chunk of my life it was pretty much the only place that existed, you know?

_Could you elaborate on that?_

Well, I mean, you know!

_I’m not sure that I do._

Fine. The Satellite of Love was where I was put together, and I didn’t have any real experience being anywhere else. The whole experiment routine and all, that’s what a normal life _was._ I mean, on a base level I knew about Earth, and that it was where we were supposed to end up one day, but there wasn’t a whole lot of reality behind it. By the time Mike came along I got into the whole idea of escaping, but even when I was putting a plan together or Mike was trying something out, I never felt like I had to think about not being in the satellite.

_But you did leave, didn’t you?_

Huh?

_At the edge of the universe?_ _Like you told me in our last session?_

...Yeah.

_So why do you think you went back?_

…

_Crow?_

Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.

_Would you mind sharing what you were just thinking about?_

…I don’t like… I haven’t talked about it a lot. But when we were… like that, it didn’t feel right. We were free. We didn’t have the movies or the mads or anything. We could do whatever we wanted. I didn’t know what to do. It just felt like another one of the intermissions between parts of the movies, like it wasn’t supposed to last very long. I didn’t even think twice about going back, it just felt like the right- like the _only_ thing to do. Like I wasn’t supposed to exist anywhere else and do anything else but live under the control of a couple of wack-job scientists, watching movies forever, and even if I felt like I hated the movies so bad that it hurt it was still all I’m supposed to do. And I am! I was built to be company on some chew toy-shaped spacecraft! That's why I was built! I wasn't supposed to leave!

_..._

_We’re not just talking about the edge of the universe anymore, are we?_

...Yeah.


	2. Cambot

**September 27, 2006**

**Nelson/Servo/Robot Residence**

 

There was always so much to record. 

Yes, on the satellite there was a  _ reason  _ to record, but with nowhere near the degree of freedom that could be found on Earth. There was always something new, something changing. They could point their lens out the window for twelve hours if they wanted to and no two minutes would be exactly alike. They wouldn’t be entertaining either. But that was beside the point.

Cambot loved their family, they did. They would not have moved in with Mike if they had been truly tired of the same people and scenery day after day. But being able to break free of their rail-mounted routine and film new frontiers was incredible. If they didn’t want to watch whatever cheap creature feature Mike put on, they had the ability to get up and leave. Just leave! Hang around in another corner of the apartment, slip outside and watch bugs on the sidewalk, listen to the sound of passing trains… 

Freedom from routine was something they didn’t even know they had been living without. After so many years of moving through the hallway, always pointed toward the theater, regardless of whether they were moving forward or back, they couldn’t help but get a little thrill out of little acts of independence. They got a kick out of staying in sleep mode too late, or watching a movie with content that would have surely been cut out of the reels the mads sent up. 

Cambot took advantage of their new creative freedom, too. No more having footage sent out and examined by evil scientists. What they shot and edited was theirs, and they were free to do with it what they chose. A whole new world was opening up through the CRT screen of Crow’s computer whenever it was left unattended. The internet was in a state of expansion, ever evolving, always opening up new opportunities and distractions. So many things to explore. So many illegal downloads to make. And so many video platforms. 

The others didn’t know about the YouTube channel yet, but once one of their videos made it big, Cambot was sure Crow wouldn’t mind knowing that his computer had been hijacked to make viral internet gold. It would happen eventually, but for now, the channel was home to short clips of experimental shots, wildlife spotted through the window, and near-daily updates of Mike tripping on things. True art is often overlooked in its time.

All in all, coming to Earth was probably the best thing to ever happen to them.

So why was it that they always ended up here?

It had been happening every night for a while now. Once all of the residents of the little one-bedroom apartment had fallen into sleep or sleep mode, the camera-robot would make their way to the table by the windowsill and stare out at the stars. Their places in the sky looked different from how Cambot had first known them; for one thing, there was a distinct lack of a certain blue planet to stare at with an imitation of the wistfulness of the stargazers who would sometimes join them. The positions all seemed slightly off from the perspective of this little blue sphere, but they were all there, still in the constellations they’d memorized. 

At some point during this time they would consider playing back the memories saved of their days of stargazing from the stars. Some nights they would. Most nights they didn’t. The little differences between then and now would only serve to get under their casing and make them uneasy. 

It didn’t make any sense. Cambot was happier on Earth, plain and simple. There they had autonomy, more space to do hobbies, and purpose outside of being used as a tool of communication. The Satellite of Love was nice, but there was no sensible reason to wish to return. 

Yet here they were, every night like clockwork, staring at the sky.

“You’re still up?”

Cambot swiveled around to the sound of approaching footsteps. They could have sworn Mike was in bed already. 

Mike opened the window slightly before stepping back. Cambot stood still for a moment before their human friend gestured outside. 

“Can you fit your lens through?”

The robot turned slowly before jutting their scope through the opening. The brisk fall breeze sent a chill through their system before they felt a warm hand on the back of their casing.

“Don’t know if that gives you any better view, but I thought you might appreciate it.”

The two stood in silence for a moment, staring out into the night.

“Seems weird to miss it, doesn’t it?”

Cambot turned sharply.  _ He knew? _

Mike gave a short, humorless laugh. “Even after all this time, I can never really get it out of my head. It’s all I seem to dream about sometimes.”

Cambot pulled their lens fully out of the window, turned toward Mike as the human continued to stare outward. 

Mike swallowed. “Some nights I wake up and… well, I mean, for just a split second, it’s not that… well, y’know, I look around the bedroom, and my brain says ‘hey wait a minute! This isn’t…’ er, I mean...”

Cambot scooted over and pressed against Mike’s side. He gave the robot a soft pat, pulling his gaze away from the window. 

“I guess it’s good to know we’ve got each other, huh?”

Cambot whirred softly.


	3. Tom Servo

**[DATE REDACTED]**

**Satellite of Love mk. II**

**Lunar Orbit**

 

Tom Servo awoke in a room he had watched burn to the ground well over a decade ago. 

From the moment he gained consciousness, it was obvious where he was. He was in Hell. Or Purgatory. An argument could be made for Heaven, too, but the bottom line was that he was on the bridge in the Satellite of Love. He was standing upright on the console, facing forward toward where Cambot would be stationed during an experiment. A monitor hung on the wall, not unlike the ones that the Mads would have used to communicate with the captives, but this was clearly a much more modern television than what had been installed on the vessel back in the ‘90s. There were other changes,  too, such as the solid blue-gray of the walls, but considering all the decor changes they had given the satellite in the past, these were no big deal. There was no mistaking the location for anything else.

Panic welled up in the little red robot’s core. This was impossible. He was dreaming. He was dead. He was in the process of dying, and this was his dying dream. He… 

...could hear snoring. 

A quick assessment of his surroundings told Servo that the noise was coming from beneath him. He scooted to the edge of the console to see the gleam of a familiar golden body lying on the floor. Crow didn’t always snore when he slept, but Servo knew the noise well enough for it to give him a hint of comfort. He wasn’t alone. Crow was here, and he seemed to be okay. 

“Crow?” he called softly. 

The other robot remained undisturbed. Servo let out a hum, preparing to hover down to the floor. His hoverskirt gave him about a millimeter of lift before puttering out. If Servo hadn’t been convinced something was wrong by everything else he’d noticed since waking up, he was now. 

“C-Crow?” he was louder this time, his voice on the verge of cracking. 

Crow only snored in response.

“CROW!” 

There was a definite crack in his voice this time, his arms flailing in panic. 

Thankfully, Crow awoke with a snorting noise. “Uh-huh! Yeah! What?” 

Servo whimpered. “Something’s… we’re…  _ there’s a lot I could say but I just woke up here and there’s the satellite we’re back on the satellite and I think my hoverskirt’s broken and I don’t know what’s going on!” _

The words spilled out of Servo’s mouth in a flood. Crow began to pull himself off the floor, opening his mouth to reply, but whatever snarky comment he had been planning to make died before it could make it to his beak. His eyes darted around in all directions, rapidly attempting to make sense of his surroundings. He closed his mouth slowly, hands folded across his chest.

“We’re… back?”

Servo hardly had enough time to stop crying when Crow snatched him off the table, holding him close to his chest as he sprinted out of the room. The hallway doors slid open as the robot dashed through, his beak occasionally bumping the top of Servo’s head as his head whipped around wildly. Not once in Crow’s trek did he make a wrong turn or pause to try and remember the vessel’s layout. It was only when he made it to the observation deck, pressed up against the window that he let himself stop moving.

And there it was. There was no ground or sky outside, no horizon. Only stars, the moon, and a cloud-swirled blue and green planet that was both too close and infinitely far away. 

Crow turned his back to the window and slumped to the ground, Tom Servo resting in his lap. The smaller robot could feel his companion’s lower beak tapping his head, wobbling. Servo felt a pit in his core.

“You can cry if you want to, Crow.”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to head back to the bridge?”

“Yeah,” Crow replied. “Yeah.”

Servo sank into Crow’s arms as the taller robot braced himself against the wall, pushing himself upright into a standing position. He turned toward the window for only a moment, giving both of them the time to take in the view of Earth. Then he wordlessly turned toward the door and proceeded down the hallway, with Servo turned toward his chest.

As they came closer to the bridge, Servo noticed that blue, white and gray were not the only colors in the lights anymore. Sure, his perception of red and green weren’t perfect, but colorblind or not, there was definitely a new color flashing among the ambient light. 

“What’s that?” he asked, words muffled against Crow’s chest. “Something’s flashing. Is there an alarm going off?”

Crow twisted the smaller robot around in his arms, turning him to see the open doorway as they entered. The two robots stared at the console.

The yellow button was flashing. 

“The… Mads are calling?” 

Crow and Servo looked at each other. 

“I… guess we answer it?” Servo shifted his arms. 

Crow nodded with a slight shrug. He set Servo down on the counter, only hesitating a little before hitting the button. 

The screen flashed with a lavender standby screen with a skull motif before it was replaced with an image of a man and woman wearing matching black coats.

“Well, well, well,” the woman began. “Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. It is an honor; nay, a privilege, to have you kidnapped and trapped in my iron clutches.”

Crow glanced over at Servo. “We’ve been abducted by a James Bond villain.”

“James Bond villain?” the man repeated. “I would recommend that you show a little more respect toward Kinga Forrester, third generation mad scientist, supreme ruler of all media, and executive producer of the  _ Mystery Science Theater 3000 Revival.” _

The man turned to Kinga with a smug expression that melted as soon as he met her eyes. 

“Max, who said you could introduce me?” he hissed.

“I… just wanted to make you sound impressive…”

Crow’s arms were folded across his chest. “A revival? And you really expect us to go along with this?” 

Kinga remained unmoved. “Of course. We have our Skeleton Crew upgrading your Cambot’s lens and recording capabilities as we speak, and Gypsum should be joining you as soon as she finishes installing our compatibility patch for the S.O.L. 2.0’s operating system.”

“We could just refuse to be entertaining,” Crow pointed out. “We could just go on a humor strike. We’re perfectly capable of making it through a movie without making jokes.”

“Are you kidding?” Max smirked. “This is literally all that you were made to do.”

“That’s not true,” Servo argued.

“Of course it is,” Kinga clasped her hands together. “You were created to be perfect entertainment.”

“Sorry, Kinga, was it?” Servo interjected. “While I’m not going to tell you I’m not perfect, we were created for our outstanding personalities. Being skilled performance artists is just a bonus.”

“You were put together to make life in captivity easier,” Kinga shrugged. “You were thrown together by a man under the influence of the worst movies ever made. Your two intended purposes were making movies bearable and keeping a man complacent with his imprisonment. Your prime objective is to make Mystery Science Theater.”

“So what?” Crow scoffed. “Even if it is, I’ll have you know that I’m terrible at following directions.”

“Oh, come on,” Max rolled his eyes. “Don’t pretend you’ve never entertained the thought before. You don’t lie awake at night, wondering if you were never meant to live on Earth?”

Servo briefly looked to his side as he heard Crow’s claws scraping against the console. “Bite me,” the golden robot snapped.

“And how come all of you came back to the satellite after your voyage to the edge of the universe?” Kinga asked with a condescending smile. 

Crow pressed harder against the counter. “That’s none of your business.”

“Oh?” Kinga grinned with sadistic glee. “Well, let me know how you feel about this: if the Satellite of Love isn’t where you were meant to belong,  _ why didn’t Joel take you back with him when he was done fixing it?” _

_ “SHUT UP!” _   Servo screamed. 

Crow recoiled as Kinga and Max stood back, satisfied. 

“Just… everybody…” Servo sniffled. “Just shut up. Please.”

“We’ll let you two get adjusted to your surroundings,” Kinga steepled her fingers, a smug look on her face. “Welcome home.”

The screen cut back into the violet standby screen before shutting off altogether. 


	4. Gypsum

**July 7th, 2017**

**Watch Out For Snakes Tour Bus, Interstate 95**

 

There was something about the tour bus at night that felt a little bit more like home. 

Granted, the relatively quiet soundscape of the highway was only reminiscent of the satellite during times when nobody else was around, and Gyspum really did prefer to have company. Out of everyone to take residence in the S.O.L., she was the one to experience this quiet the most often (save, perhaps, for Crow’s unique situation, but that was beside the point). Whether or not she enjoyed the long stretches of peace while Cambot and the boys were in the theater varied from day to day, but here and now, as she stayed awake, tapping away at the tablet borrowed from Synthia, it was hard to get a read on her own state of mind.

“Gypsum?” 

She dropped the tablet pen, looking back to see Jonah stumbling out of the back cabin.

“Just sending some messages to Cambot,” she replied. “Told me to say they miss you up there.”

Jonah smiled. “You can tell them we miss ‘em down here, too.”

Gypsum nodded, retrieving the pen with her mouth. She returned to tapping on the screen, with neither making any further conversation until Jonah broke the ice.

“Were you having trouble getting to sleep too?”

The robot nodded, speaking around the stylus in her jaws. “Always do when I’m on the ground.”

Blinking, Jonah stepped closer before sitting cross-legged next to the pile of coils. “Really? Why’s that?”

Gypsum lowered her head, setting the stylus down once again. “Kind of a long story.”

“So, is it actually long, or do you not want to talk about it?” Jonah pressed. “I won’t make you tell me if it’s the second one.”

“No, it’s fine,” she shook her head. “It’s both. And neither. And not really a story.”

Jonah raised an eyebrow. “I mean, now I’m curious.”

“It’s about the satellite,” Gypsum stated. “You know how I’m always monitoring the vital systems onboard? It’s always taken up most of my processing power, so when I’m disconnected from it for a long time, it can be hard for me to rein in my thoughts.”

Jonah nodded. “You get so used to doing everything at once that you always need to be doing something, right?”

“Pretty much,” Gypsum confirmed. “Well, there is a little bit of another aspect to it that goes with that. It’s not so much that I  _ get used _ to running the ship. The part I have to adapt to is  _ not  _ doing it.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

Gypsum rested her head on the ground. “I’ll be blunt and put it another way. I was built to run the ship. I’m not designed to live outside of it. There was never protocol or anything for how I’m supposed to function when I’m not managing life support.” 

Jonah leaned forward. “I thought being disconnected let you utilize your full processing power. You said you could think more clearly.”

_ “ Too _ clearly,” Gypsum corrected. “I’m just so busy all the time that managing the ship becomes background noise, so when I don’t have to do it I tend to over-exert myself to fill in the silence.”

“Is that how you got your company off the ground so quickly?”

Gypsum’s eye glowed brightly. “Other rising CEOs can only  _ wish _ for that sort of motivation and drive.”

The snakelike bot turned off the tablet and pushed it to the side with a coil as she raised her head to the window, looking out at the night sky. “It’s always unsettled me a little bit.”

“What has?” Jonah stood up and moved to join her at the window.

“We really weren’t made to leave the Satellite of Love,” Gypsum explained matter-of-factly. “It wasn’t intentional. Joel needed friends who could help him on board so he wouldn’t have to be all alone. I don’t really blame him for designing us to live in indefinite captivity.”

Gypsum turned to Jonah suddenly, wincing. “That came out sounding darker than I intended. I didn’t mean it like that, I promise. We’ve had lengthy discussions about things like this, I know--”

Jonah simply put a hand on the robot’s neck-tubing. Gypsum stopped, leaning into the gesture.

“I thought about it a lot after we left the satellite,” she continued softly. “It bothered me a lot, and I’d be lying if I said that feeling has gone away. But I’ve had a lot of time and a lot of brainpower to think about it, and I think I’ve got it all figured out.”

“Oh?”

“We were built to be prisoners on the satellite,” she began, staring out at the night sky. “We can’t change that. But that doesn’t make it the only place our lives can be meaningful. It’s more challenging to find purpose on Earth, since it’s not exactly where we were first meant to be, but that doesn’t mean we belong here any less. It’s a lot easier for us to live in space, and I know the others are just as attached to it as I am --well, not on a literal level, since I’m actually wired into the dang thing-- but that doesn’t mean we need to stay there forever. The fact that life on Earth is harder is kind of better, really: we get to try new things instead of following the routine of experiments. Humans certainly don’t come programmed with a set life in mind, you can create your own purpose at your own pace. Living on the S.O.L. may be our original purpose, but we don’t have to accept it.” 

“Are you done being a life coach now?”

Gypsum and Jonah swiveled around to see Crow, sitting up from his position under the blankets on the couch on the opposite side of the bus. His words were dripping with sarcasm, but the rest of him didn’t seem to match; his hands were crossed delicately against his chest, pulling the blankets up with him as he stared with gentle eyes. 

Gypsum recoiled, her head lowering sheepishly. “Oh.”

“You didn’t have to say anything, Crow,” Tom Servo chided as he rose out of his own bed. “You could have just let them have a moment without jumping up and revealing yourself.”

“And use the information gathered for pranks and blackmail later?”

“Exactly!”

Gypsum covered her face with a loop of coil, embarrassed. “I guess that did sound pretty corny. Forget it.”

“Well duh, it was corny,” Servo said as he hovered closer. “Heartfelt stuff always is. Doesn’t make it less true or anything.”

Crow nodded. “The sappier, the more genuine. And that was sappy enough to serve on pancakes.” 

Gypsum snorted. “You two are terrible with handling emotional topics.”

Servo flourished. “The worst!”

Gypsum reared up and knocked the floating robot playfully with her head. “Obviously.” 

“Guys, try to keep the roughhousing to a minimum, “ Jonah cut in. “If we wake up Synthia we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Servo huffed, landing next to Crow on the couch. “Hmph. Killjoy.”

Gypsum slid over to the sofa. “Oh,  _ there  _ it is.”

“Hm?” Crow looked up at her. 

“I was trying to figure out where the satellite is relative to our position,” Gypsum gestured to the window above the couch. “I was looking out on the wrong side the whole time.  _ Now _ I can see the moon.”

The trees were relatively sparse on this strip of highway, leaving a view of the sky that was only impeded by the light pollution. The moon was waxing, nearly full, gleaming like silver. 

“You know something I’ll always love about Earth?” Gypsum asked as Jonah joined his robot friends.

“What’s that?”

“The moon always looks so much nicer from down here,” she smiled.

It really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for giving this story a chance. If you've enjoyed, don't hesitate to leave a comment or piece of feedback!


End file.
